With my parents in town this weekend, and in tow, I took them to the Dyke Marsh
on
Sunday afternoon in hopes of getting my Mom a "life" kinglet. We didn't see
any
kinglets, but we added to our list from the day before at Huntley Meadows (to
name a
few highlights for us: kestrel, snipe, yellow throat, rough winged swallow,
palm
warblers, bluebirds, and the yellow crowned night heron)!
The highlight of the Dyke Marsh trip was a Horned Grebe very close to the shore
(and, yes, my last name really is Grebe - making this bird all that more
special
because our family is pretty into Grebes!). Throw in a few Palm Warblers,
Yellow
Rumped Warblers, Tree Swallows, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers (actually catching
gnats!),
and a handful of Pied-Billed Grebes, and we had a great day.
Towards the end of our walk (out on the newly built deck area), we were looking
south down the Potomac where that little inlet comes in. And we saw the most
bizarre/funny "duck" behavior: about 25 "ducks" would swim along together in
an
oval shape, and the leader would dive - and then in order (like dominos), all
the
rest would dive as well! A few seconds later - they would all return to the
surface
in the same order that they dove! This repeated at least 5 times until they
were
out of sight!
I think they were red-breasted mergansers (I guess this from the shape of their
head
and their relative size to the cormoronts they passed). Has anyone else seen
this
sort of behavior? I must say, it was humorous to watch!
-Renee Grebe
Alexandria, VA
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